BackgroundStrategists like Chadha and Parker make calls on the S&P 500, which can be helpful for index investors. But not everyone is interested in index investing. Many want to invest in individual stocks, and they'd like to use the good research calls associated with those stocks.

Price Target StudyWe reviewed the price targets each major brokerage firm had at the beginning of 2011 for each of the 30 stocks of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Then we compared those targets with the price of each stock at the close of 2011.

Once we figured out the margin of error for each analyst and the stock they covered, we combined those figures for each bank to determine a weighted score measuring the accuracy of each firm. The highest possible accuracy score would be 100, which would mean each analyst at the firm had price targets that match perfectly with the year end closing prices. (For more details on how we scored each firm, see our methodology.)

FindingsAs expected, analysts generally forecasted the stocks they covered to rise. So, the analysts who were the most accurate were also the ones who overshot by the least.

No firm completely dominated in the rankings. Most had at least one analyst who was the most accurate analyst covering their stock. But most also had an analyst who was the worst in their category.

The most inaccurate analysts were the ones covering Bank Of America, which closed the year at $5.56 after losing more than half of its market value. The average price target at the beginning of 2011 was $17.27 with a range of $13 to $20 per share.

Deutsche Bank's Chadha may have been one of the most inaccurate strategists when it came to forecasting the S&P 500. However, Deutsche Bank's individual equity analysts scored relatively well in our study.

Generally speaking, the largest investment banks scored highly on our list with Goldman Sachs leading the bulge bracket banks.